Federal crop insurance was a really good idea during the 1930s Dust Bowl, but now, "the program's become "a 21st-century crutch enabling affluent growers and financial institutions to thrive at taxpayer expense":

In American politics as in the American economy, power and wealth have shifted from the industrial capitalists of old to the "rent lords" of the early 21st century, based in the overgrown FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) sector.

The "takers" who threaten the dynamism and fairness of industrial capitalism the most in the 21st century are not the welfare-dependent poor -- the villains of Tea Party propaganda -- but the rent-extracting, unproductive rich.